This application claims benefit of priority under 35 USC 119 on Japanese Patent Application No. P2000-289129 filed on Sep. 22, 2000, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor memory having a nonvolatile memory cell array, and particularly, to the structure of source wiring in the memory cell array.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flash memories are roughly classified into NOR flash memories and NAND flash memories based on cell array structures. The NOR flash memories are randomly accessible and are appropriate for high-speed read applications. FIG. 1 is a plan view showing a memory cell array in a NOR flash memory according to a first prior art. This prior art employs a SAS (self-aligned source) structure to reduce cell size. The SAS structure is formed by forming word lines (control gates 100 in FIG. 1), removing an element isolation oxide film in a self-aligning manner with respect to the word lines, and forming a diffusion layer on the part where the oxide film has been removed. The diffusion layer forms drain regions 102 and source regions 104. FIGS. 2A and 2B are sectional views taken along a line Ixe2x80x94I of FIG. 1, in which FIG. 2A is before the removal of the element isolation oxide film 112 and FIG. 2B is after the removal of the same. The oxide film 112 is formed by LOCOS (localized oxidation of silicon) method. After the removal of the oxide film 112, ions are implanted to form the diffusion layer 114 of n+-type.
A recently used element isolation method is STI (shallow trench isolation) method, which is effective to reduce a memory cell array. Applying the STI method to the memory cell array of FIG. 1 causes a problem. FIGS. 3A and 3B are sectional views taken along the line Ixe2x80x94I of FIG. 1 assuming that the memory cell array of FIG. 1 is formed by the STI method. Trenches are formed in a substrate 110, and an insulating film is formed over the trenches. An element isolation region formed by the STI method is steeper than that formed with the element isolation oxide film 112 of FIG. 2A of the LOCOS method. In FIG. 3A, ions are vertically implanted into the substrate 110, and no diffusion layer is formed on each side face of each trench from which an element isolation oxide film (not shown) has been removed. In FIG. 3B, ions are obliquely implanted into the substrate 110. This may form an n+-type diffusion layer 116 on each trench side face, too. The structure of FIG. 3B, however, causes a problem shown in FIG. 4B. Compared with a normal memory cell transistor of FIG. 4A, the structure of FIG. 4B involves a source region 104 having a very deep depth xe2x80x9cdxe2x80x9d due to horizontally diffused impurities. This results in increasing the resistance of the source region 104 and deteriorating read/write performance. To avoid the problem, the prior art must form metal source wiring connected to source regions 104 at predetermined intervals in parallel with bit lines. This source wiring increases a memory cell array area.
FIG. 5 shows a second prior art that employs an extended source region 104, instead of the SAS structure. However, the extended source region 104 of FIG. 5 increases a cell size Namely, a distance L1 shown in FIG. 6 must be long enough to absorb positioning errors in a lithography process, prevent variations in the shapes of channel regions, and avoid unstableness in memory cell characteristics, in particular, between vertically formed memory cells. A distance L2 shown in FIG. 6 must also be large enough to prevent a floating gate isolation region 128 from overlapping the source region 104 in the lithography process. If the overlapping happens, the source region 104 will be etched off in an etching process that follows the lithography process. It is difficult to maintain the shape of the island-shaped floating gate isolation region 128. If there are positioning errors between the floating gate isolation regions 128 and control gates 100 to vary the shapes of the control gates 100 between even and odd lines, there will be large cell characteristic differences between the even and odd lines.
An aspect of the present invention provides a nonvolatile semiconductor memory having a memory cell array. The memory cell array includes active regions extending linearly in parallel with one another and containing impurity diffused source and drain regions, element isolation regions extending linearly and isolating the active regions from one another, gate electrodes orthogonally crossing the active regions and element isolation regions and each having a floating gate and a control gate laid one upon another, and first metal conductors extending linearly in parallel with the gate electrodes and each connecting the source regions to one another between adjacent ones of the gate electrodes. The drain regions are connected via the first metal conductors or direct to a second metal conductors.